Five o'clock on the first Friday of the month, and the grassy stretch beside the Sunrise Theater starts filling in the way it always does. Somebody's kid claims a folding chair before the band has even set up amps. A line forms at the food truck. Someone else walks over to the table pouring Southern Pines Brewery on tap and hands over a few dollars.
The concert is free, while food and drinks are available for purchase. First Fridays are the main fundraiser for the Sunrise Theater, the volunteer-run nonprofit that keeps the marquee lit on Broad Street. Purchases on the lawn and sponsorships help fund the theater.
Twenty Seasons of the Same Habit
As Star 102.5 reported, 2026 marks the First Friday concert series' 20th season, a run that's rare for any free, volunteer-driven event. The format hasn't changed much in that time. The usual schedule runs on the first Friday from May through October, skipping July, with a November date added this year. The crowd gathers on the green space next to the Sunrise Theater at what's now called the First Bank Stage, from 5 to 9 p.m., rain or shine. Bring a chair or a blanket. A food truck sets up on site, and Southern Pines Brewery sells beer and hard seltzers. Part of Broad Street closes for the evening, which is the visible sign that something is happening even if you've never been.
The crowds have grown enough that peak nights in warm weather draw as many as 1,000 people to a stretch of downtown that's usually a few hundred yards of storefronts and parked cars. That kind of turnout helps explain why the closure has become routine.
This fall's lineup, for anyone tracking it: Shadowgrass played the September 4 date, the show already behind us as of this writing. October 2 brings The Psychadelics. Fireside Collective closes the 2026 season on November 6, a date added after the usual May-through-October run.
The Undercard Isn't Filler
What's easy to miss if you only show up for the name on the poster is the undercard. The series runs a program called MoCoRising, which pairs each touring act with a rising Moore County musician who opens the night. It's a small structural choice, but it means the same stage that's hosted acts drawing four-figure crowds is also, at each show, handing a paid slot and a real audience to somebody who lives twenty minutes away and is still building a following. As Star 102.5 reported, organizers describe it simply: every big band has played a small stage first. First Friday is set up to be one of those small stages, on purpose, at each show, for two decades running.
The Same Night, Different Towns
First Friday isn't only a Southern Pines thing, even though the concert is the loudest version of it. The same evening, in Aberdeen, the Artists League of the Sandhills holds its own opening at a converted train terminal at the end of Exchange Street, the nonprofit's headquarters and gallery space. The exhibits rotate, the crowd skews toward people who know each other from around the county rather than from social media, and by most accounts it's one of the more consistently well-attended openings in the area, even on a busy local calendar.
Back in Southern Pines, the historic Campbell House hosts its own opening reception the same night, six to eight in the evening, for the Arts Council's first-floor galleries. The exhibits there rotate monthly too, mixing nationally recognized artists with local ones, and the timing means you can walk from a gallery reception to a free concert without changing your parking spot.
The three events share a Friday, with the First Friday concert in Southern Pines and gallery openings in Southern Pines and Aberdeen.
Sunday Closes the Loop
If First Friday is the loud version of the tradition, Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities runs the quiet one. Its Come Sunday Jazz series, named for the Duke Ellington standard, brings a rotating lineup of jazz artists to the Weymouth grounds on Sunday afternoons through the rest of the year. The current stretch opened with Sidecar Social Club on August 31 and continues with the Juno Award-winning Virginia MacDonald Quartet on September 28, followed by North Carolina jazz vibraphonist Brandon Mitchell on October 26. Bring your own chair and a picnic, or buy from the cash bar on site.
Taken together, the rhythm of a Southern Pines month during concert season isn't really about any single event. It's a cadence: first Friday downtown and in Aberdeen, then a jazz Sunday at Weymouth closing out the same stretch a few weeks later. None of it requires a ticket bought months in advance. All of it depends on people showing up and supporting the organizations behind the events.
The sponsor list for First Friday changes hand by hand, month by month, and it's worth knowing that Realty World – Properties of the Pines has served as a title sponsor of the series, alongside partners like Sandhills Community College taking on individual months. It's the kind of local commitment that doesn't show up on a marquee anywhere else, just a line on a flyer and a name on a banner strung along a fence on Broad Street on the season's scheduled dates, for going on twenty years.
That's the thing about a tradition this old. Nobody standing on the lawn in September is thinking about October, let alone about year twenty-five. They're thinking about the band, the beer in hand, whether the kids are close enough to keep an eye on. The tradition continues because people keep showing up and supporting the event.
If you're already part of that crowd, you already know the feeling. If you're new to Southern Pines and finding your way into its rhythms, First Friday is as good a place as any to start, and the Sunday jazz at Weymouth is a fine way to close the loop. For anything else about life in and around town, from the market to the neighborhoods themselves, Nikki Bowman and the team at Realty World – Properties of the Pines are always glad to talk. Contact Us anytime.
